The non-profit Cure Alzheimer's Fund is applying some financially aggressive tactics to putting funds toward research.  For one, it is shunning building an endowment during the recession in favor of more quickly applying finances toward the work of researchers.  The organization also applies some strategic thinking borrowed from the venture capital field in its search for a cure. And the man behind this approach is Chairman of  Greylock Partners Henry McCance, one of the co-founders of Cure Alzheimer's Fund,

Anthony Tjan, founder and CEO of the VC firm Cue Ball, interviewed McCance for Harvard Business Review, and asked him to explain how VC principles manifest themselves in the organization's approach:

The most important way it did was in our mission: we are daring to be great. VCs don't seek 5% improvements; they try to invest in things that will be transformational, like Google, Cisco, Red Hat, and others. We wanted to apply the same upside-seeking strategy to Alzheimer's research. We looked at the way research was traditionally done and said we needed a much more entrepreneurial and VC mindset towards funding projects that could move us more rapidly to a cure. When we hosted a dinner for some leading neuroscientists, we learned that they spend a disproportionate amount of time, 30 to 35%, filling out bureaucratic forms to receive research grants from the NIH or other well-meaning organizations. The worst part is that the grant making peer review process is so risk adverse resulting in incremental progress. That kind of funding is the equivalent of a one-yard plunge by a full back from the New England Patriots, a far cry from the breakthroughs we wanted to fund. The scientists told me that they don't have any funding available for the twenty and thirty-yard pass kind of research. This was like the early days of VC when some very talented entrepreneurs did not have good funding sources for big ideas. After that, I was convinced that there was a role for Cure Alzheimer's Fund.

Read the full interview, and watch a video of McCance and Tjan's discussion here.